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What is the main risk for Asian economy? None other than Inflation . Across the region, fast-growing countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, India and China are reporting faster than expected price increases in tandem with their economic success. To fight inflation, many countries already carried out their tools of tightening. We have Singapore who fights imported inflation via stronger currency. Meanwhile, other countries are going for the traditional way of hiking interest rate and increasing bank reserve requirement since last year. At first, Bank Negara Malaysia called it as "normalization", but it seems to be "containerization" going forward to contain inflation. Who's fault? There are 2 causes for the problem, which I categorized them into international and national. Among the international contributing factors were: Loose monetary policies practiced by US and Europe, who slashes interest rate to almost zero and carried out large scale of asset purchases...

Dear President Obama: Your decision to request that the EPA suspend its new regulations on ozone that could have easily cost another one million jobs is a good one. Build on it. In your speech on the 8th of September, make the ozone regulation suspension the start of something big. Announce that you are now suspending all new regulations that are the result of Dodd-Frank, Obamacare, the 2009 Credit Card reform act, new NLRB rules such as the Boeing-South Carolina fiasco. Further, you are suggesting that Congress impose limits on lawsuits against business when the businesses themselves are not at fault (but their employees might be). You are further going to request that Congress suspend minimum wage laws and family leave act provisions until unemployment sinks below six percent. Finally, you are going to ask Congress to exempt all companies with less than $ 50 billion market capitalization from the absurd provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley. It is okay to say that all of these onerous th...

FHFA is now suing the major banks for subprime lending problems. Just what the economy needs. Why not just pass a law saying that no one but rich people can take out mortgage loans? That would accomplish the same agenda as this lawsuit by FHFA. I guess the Obama folks still don't get it. People other than Obama and Buffett need a chance in this economy. Suing the banks just makes more certain that they won't get that chance.

The jobs report this morning was startling -- no new jobs created in the US economy for the month of August! It seems that Obama was listening this time as he quickly suspended the onerous new ozone rules propagated by his EPA. While suspending the new regulations will not create jobs, it will at least prevent the wholesale destruction of existing jobs. That's a start. The Administration, really for the first time, has halted something that destroys jobs! Hope springs eternal. Maybe the President is beginning to get a glimmer of why his policies are destroying the American economy. This would be good news indeed.

In Malaysia, we can see a lot of businesses being conducted by state government. Should there be a limit to the extent that state government should involved in? Yes, we know that the state also need money to run their administrations daily operations expenses. But, would it be wise to collect revenue generated by businesses in the state, instead of relying of its own businesses? Well, doing businesses by state government itself can generate more revenue. This is the case only if the businesses were run successfully and making profits. Otherwise, the businesses' losses were barred by rakyat themselves. Why we only highlight State Government? Simply because most of the state government is making losses. In fact, only one state is making profit and still it is highly indebted. By going back to history, we know how that state wrest control of one reputable fast-food chain business, which became its cash-cow now. Then, the money from this cash-cow is spinning around within the group. ...

Isn't it obvious that the politicians have no idea why the economy is staggering? After the arrogance of January, 2009, when the exuberant victors of the 2008 election proceeded to toss away $ 800 billion in a foolish waste of money known as "the stimulus." The Obama folks assumed that throwing taxpayer money in the direction of Obama political allies (mostly state employee union members) would magically get the economy back on track. Why the Obama folks thought that, no one knows? Then the Obama team began the process of erecting roadblocks (think Dodd Frank, Obamacare, the Credit Card Reform act, stifling regulations from the EPA and the NLRB) that would virtually guarantee that the economy had no real chance of recovery. Now, Obama promises to come up with a new package to deal with the "jobs problem." This would be comical were it not so tragic. Putting up more roadblocks does not remove the original roadblocks. This economy will not get out of its own ...

If cell phones cost $ 10,000 apiece and required $ 1,000 monthly service bills, who would own them? Well, no doubt, Warren Buffett would own one and perhaps Bill Gates and Barrack Obama as well. But, what about the average guy. Would he own a cell phone at those prices? What if the economy was very strong, would most folks get a cell phone, if these were the costs? The answer is pretty obvious. At that price, very few people would be interested. This is the fundamental jobs problem in the US. Because of government mandates, the anticipation of Obamacare, litigation fears, OSHA rules, threat of unionization, a blithering variety of employment taxes, family leave laws, American labor is priced out of the market for most businesses. There are some businesses for which price is not an issue: Wall Street, the movies, professional sports, working at the White House, etc. But, for most private businesses who do the bulk of hiring in the US, labor is just way too expensive thanks to the...